Our Little Barrel Racer

The first Gymkhana of the season was last Saturday night. Hayden has been patiently waiting for the last several weeks. She loves horses, Charlie, especially. She's making such great progress on him. Bubba has done a great job teaching her safety and increasing her comfort and ease on him by herself. Last week, Conal had her in their arena, practicing turns and increasing their speed. Hayden is so very comfortable on Charlie that we have to remind her to sit straight and pay attention so that she doesn't get too distracted!

The rules have changed a bit this year. It's a bigger age group incorporating 4 to 7 year olds. You now also have 10 seconds added to your time if you have a lead line. So, neither Cooper nor Hayden got a ribbon this time. We let them each do one barrel race, as it was at night this month and didn't start until 7:00pm (they tend to run late!). They both got off of their horse ready to go again and were very disappointed that they couldn't do another event. They were both also a little bummed that they didn't place in the ribbon scoring, but Hayden left the Rodeo grounds saying that she's going to practice real hard so she can go fast next time and ride by herself, with no lead line. We'll see about that. I highly doubt she'll be ready for that by next month, but maybe the end of the season!! We'll let her keep thinking that, and hey, ya never know! We love that she's found something she enjoys so much, we'll let her go at her own pace and do whatever makes her happy!

Warming UpTwo VERY excited Cheerleaders!

Bubba's Dad (aka Papa Cox), the kiddos and Memaw More HAPPY Cheerleaders!Maddie and Hayden - The Bell girls came to cheer Hayden on!

Not pictured: Papa - he was the photographer!